Rodney

Even if whaqt you say is true, Big Gov -- and I'm not gonna do the research right now -- it's frankly getting harder and harder to find new landfill sites in desirable or heavily populated areas, because nobody wants them near their house. The county I live in just gave up trying to find a new landfill site because they can't find a single part of the county where people aren't willing to fight to the death against a landfill coming in. So they're going to see if they can pay somebody else to take it. Given this political reality, and the cost of trucking all your garbage 20 or 50 or more miles away -- there is a real shortage of landfill in many parts of this country. Because the citizens won't allow new ones to be built. It's not just the fault of politicians and waste handlers.

There may be no shortage of landfill sites 50 miles away -- but is it cost-effective to ship the garbage that far? That's a good question.

No matter how hard-core you are against it, some recycling's always a good idea. If you've got a back yard, you should have a compost heap in it. All our vegetable waste goes there, plus things like dregs of rice and pasta and paper towels and even tortilla chips. The worms munch it all down; I've been putting big bags of stuff in my composter every week for two years and it's not full yet. Meanwhile, some weeks there's so little garbage in the can (we do put the cans and papers in a separate recycling container) that I don't bother to put it on the curb.

On the other hand, if those melon rinds and apple peels are buried in a landfill, in an anaerobic environment, they may never rot. They might be there 50 years from now.